Quiet Mountain Essays
Copyright©,2004; All Rights Reserved by Author
The Negress Muses...
by
Suzanne Sunshower
My birth certified me to be a capital lady.
Negress.
Not the woman I am demoted to:
black.
Insidiously uncapitalized,
the title of pride Black
and description of strength
(Black)
is but an opposite,
defining me in terms of another.
As in not white,
black.
Everywhere I read
Hispanic, Native American black
but never Black
in the newspapers and magazines
advertising for my Black
money.
Worse still I'm not even Black
to the editors
at "progressive" publications
who hawk their liberalism
and lip-serve dignity
for the oppressed,
while carefully editing my B's
back down to policy size
before publishing me.
So smugly certain are they
I've gotten carried away
with my own story.
Contributor's Notes...
You know that I run this site, but other than that you don't know too much about me, right? Let's see...
I labor as an independent Writer/Artist, although by academic training I am a social scientist, holding
specializations in Psychology and Political Science. I began writing for feminist publications over 20 years
ago as a feature writer for the Detroit Women's Voice; I was also a Midwest correspondent for New
Directions for Women. My articles have appeared in various newspapers and magazines, however
some of you may have read my essays in Off Our Backs, or just recently in Rain and Thunder and
Altar. My poetry has appeared in Sinister Wisdom, and in mainstream literary journals. I am taking
editor's liberty by presenting two of my own poems in this Open Issue and writing this long bio, even
though I limited other contributors to one poem and four bio lines :-) ! Enjoy QME's Summer Open
Issue!
